Observations Of A Girl Gamer

03 Jan 2010 at 00:00:00 by Bill Vaughan

Thanks to online gaming, there exists a huge community of like-minded people who enjoy logging on to play alongside others. The number of female gamers has risen greatly in recent years, now making up 40 per cent of the gaming population. This fact came as quite a surprise to me if I'm honest. I, like many others, was under the impression that a girl gamer was a rare breed indeed, having bumped into relatively few of them in my time. However, how many have I grouped up with while playing MMOs without knowing? We hardly introduce ourselves as a female the moment we meet someone, there's no need to, but there are certain drawbacks and occasional benefits to revealing our gender to others while gaming.

It's a fact that girl gamers are treated differently by many guys once they know the player is female. I hasten to add that not all guys can be tarred with the same brush; I know several who continue to think of me as one of the lads, and the revelation of my gender made no change to our friendship whatsoever. I think that most girls know not to announce themselves in random group situations though. On the few occasions I've done this, at least one of the group members' attitude towards me changed once they knew who was behind my on-screen character. Not in a nasty way mind you, in fact quite the opposite. Some players suddenly become very friendly, offering to help out whenever needed, sending “unwanted” items they just picked up, sharing instant messenger or email details. It's sweet, but honestly, most of us girls just want to play the game. Guys can feel free to talk about themselves while playing without fear of people changing their attitudes towards them, and it's frustrating that girls sometimes have to hold back.

Of course, some don't keep it to themselves, and they have their reasons. I've witnessed people making the very most of their gender, fully aware of the up-sides; While playing last night, I saw somebody seeking to fill the last place in their group. “Looking for tank, last spot – help a girl out!”. I actually cringed. And the worst thing is, I expect it got a response. Probably some teenager, thinking he's coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress, hoping for some sort of reward when, in fact, all he's likely to get for his trouble is a “Cheers” at the end of the instance, if he's lucky. What's more, it probably wasn't even true. Based on past experience with small groups, I'd think twice before putting up the "help, I'm a girl" flag in a global channel and, unless they were very naïve, most sensible chicks would. Boys: beware of people that shout about the fact they're female – it's probably a G.I.R.L. That's Guy In Real Life, for those of you not in the know.

Oh yes, this happens quite a bit. Not long ago, a 'girl' joined a raiding guild I was in. She registered on the forums and posted a picture of herself, which got the largely-male dominated guild's attention quite quickly. From that point onwards she had a regular raiding spot, quickly became the primary healer and got priority for drops over others who had been guild members before her. But it wasn't long before our raids required communication from all members via voice chat. Up until then, she had claimed her microphone was broken. When she was finally required to speak, her 'brother' took over from her because she suddenly had to go out. From then onwards, every time she needed to speak, she would make some excuse and either not talk at all or 'get her brother to play for her'. When people started to twig that this was actually a guy pretending to be a girl to reap the rewards, 'she' left the guild – for a much better one I'll add, since all that nice new gear made the character ready for bigger and better things. I was quite stunned that anyone would go to such lengths to get further in-game but, then again, it worked didn't it?

The fact is that guys don't need to be so taken aback when they discover a real-life girl while online gaming, there are many more of us nowadays than there used to be. The idea that games are almost entirely played by boys is a thing of the past. When in a group of 5 players, chances are at least 2 of them are girls, and here's the last statistic for you: There are almost double the number of girls over the age of 18 playing computer games than there are guys under 18 who play.

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